kanban newbie question about linking tasks to user story

Bill Quinn

This is my first venture into using Kanban.

I am struggling to understand the relationship between Epic, Story and Tasks.

I thought it would work like this:

Epic - the master User Story that groups the individual user stories. Example: As the master database admin, I would like to have data standards across all fields in the item table.

User Story - Example: As the master dba, I would like to have a drop down list for item category field to allow the user to select only the values on the list.

Task - Example: Create a spreadsheet with the valid values and the definition of each value. 

***confusion*** - It seems like I should be able to link the task above to the User Story but I am only able to link the task to the Epic. Am I missing a setting or is this the expected behavior? If I am missing a setting, where do I go to fix. If this is the expected behavior, what is the use case for the use story. It seems the tasks / user story relationship would get confusing.

I am confident I am missing something. 

cgauterio

Hi Bill,

Actually, a User Story and a Task are on the same level, that's why you are not being able to associate them as your want. You can link them, if you want, my suggestion is to create a sub-task under the user Story, this way you will have the correct hierarchy, having the Epic as the master User Story, linked to User Stories, and each User Story is broken under several sub-tasks, that can be completed separately.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Clarissa.